Kurume & Dega varieties grown by smallholders & delivered to Tagel Alemayehu's processing site in Goro, Hambela, Guji. Processed as a traditional natural, whole fruit dried on raised beds allowing yeast time to transform them.
Tagel Alemayehu's Hambela site at 2300 masl in Goro is managed by his brother, Asigit, & represents the efforts of their network of outgrowers. The cup profile retains variety character, while adding a creaminess from the yeast dominance resulting from a natural process. Purple gummies, alongside green grape, white tea, & tropical cacao.
About Tagel
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Tagel started Okali in 2018, and has an interesting vantage point as the son of a local coffee trader who built the first coffee washing station in Bule Hora. Later Tagel worked as the manager of one of the first specialty natural stations in Guji back in 2004. The outgrower network he's cultivating with Okali is the result of trust built up over decades working locally. They continue to work exclusively in Guji, and have processing sites in Kercha, Birbirsa Kojowa, Bule Hora, Hambella Wamena woredas (a word is a municipality or district). Asigit Alemayehu is Tagel's brother who works at the Hambela site.
Tagel's coffee ranked 18th in the (inaugural) 2020 Ethiopian Cup of Excellence. The network of outgrowers Tagel works with represents an impressive collective 412 hectares. He also produces coffee on his own 1-hectare plot. When asked about his thoughts around placing so well at the COE, Tagel said, "I focus my energy and effort to maintain quality," and his ethos really does permeate out to his network.
Kurume & Dega
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Kurume & Dega are originally the names of trees (not coffee) indigenous to the South, Kurume known for small fruits with good yield & Dega for its fragrance. Specific local landrace coffees inherited these names from local farmers & then bred by Jimma Agricultural Research Centre in the 1960s.
